(Secret Mommy lives in Vancouver where he is also known as Andy Dixon.)
One of the great things about music is its ability to spark narratives and sequences in our head that are totally our own. The music provides the catalyst; however the type of “sound” narrative we create belongs solely to us.
In this review for Secret Mommy’s new album Mammal Class, I wanted to share with you the aural narrative that arose in my mind, doing so as a way to speak to the musical atmosphere of the album without having to rely only on feeble words as descriptors. It is my hope that upon hearing the album for yourself that an equally energetic and bizarre scene will form in your head. Often while listening to Mammal Class, I imagined a field recording farmer using a “DSPlow” to turn over the ground of his childhood memories. The sounds have the tone and quality of youthful memories or educational toys.
This is a farmer whose methods in the field are simple; record a sound, work with it, fertilize it, and cross-pollinate it till it comes out hybridized and barely recognizable. He then uses those new sounds to make up different elements in the track. Recordings from birthday parties, toys, radio, fruits, and animals all act as seedlings from which bizarre and muted plants grow.
Some of Andy Dixon’s favorite sound sources are the residents of his barnyard. His line-up of livestock is impressive. We hear cameo’s from the horse on “I’m Juan,” a cow and bell in “Mess With The Bull Get the Horns,” a frog in “Don’t Croak,” and the coop of chickens in “Shania Twang.”
However, the best results are found in the non-animal track, “Andrew W. Cake.” Imagine a birthday party full of kids buzzed out on sugar and magic mushroom pizza joining in with the animatronic Chuck E. Cheese band. Chuck E., being the gifted MC, has the kids raising the roof early rave style, but not with whistles, rather with their tiny plastic party horns. The band builds and builds the song until it reaches a frenetic pace and then, as quickly as it kicked in, the sugar and mushrooms bottom out. The strung out kids are left wondering who is this person they’re dancing with and why their jaws hurt. But before you can say Jolt Cola ten times, the band bangs the beat back in and pushes the grommets to a level higher than the sun.
The agrarian analogy breaks down often on Mammal Class, but the variance of timbre and tone on is refreshing to hear. These days so many tracks suffer due to over-used or unimaginative sound sources. While Andy does rely heavily on his Max/MSP Mulcher to chop up the sounds, the arrangements still have the energy and inventiveness of a farmer who every once in a while will dip into ye ol’ cow patty for a cap o’ fungi or two. It’s a barnyard blitz y’all.
Mammal Class is OUT NOW on Orthlorng Musork (CD) and Ache Records (LP).
